You obviously didn't mean the religious. The people that speak of god, the vast majority, that don't know god.

 So it was then. Much more so today.

Likewise here. The scribes and the pharisees, the empty religious, are exactly that because they hear with their head and with their flesh. They are unable to hear what their soul because they allowed their soul to be killed long ago. You never argued with them because in them you saw no hope of hearing the truth because they had no desire for the truth other than to kill it.